Christopher Purves
English bass-baritone and former King's College chorister.
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Christopher Watt Purves is an English bass-baritone born 11 October 1961. He sang as a boy treble in the choir of King's College, Cambridge, and later returned as a choral scholar, studying English literature. By his student years he sang bass, alongside Gerald Finley and tenor Mark Padmore.
Early life
Christopher Purves, a bass-baritone, was born in Cambridge on 11 October 1961, the youngest of four sons of two physicians, Dr Michael Jarvie Purves and Dr Jean Purves. As a boy, he sang treble in the King's College, Cambridge choir, later returning as a choral scholar to study English literature.
By his student years, he sang bass alongside contemporaries Gerald Finley and tenor Mark Padmore. He earned a BA in 1983 and an MA in 1987. After Cambridge, he performed with the close harmony group Harvey and the Wallbangers.
Career
Purves sang with Opera North in several productions in the seasons 1997 to 2004 and later. He performed with The Sixteen and has an extensive discography. He featured on the CD cover as Figaro in Opera in English's release of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in 2004.
He was one of the artists on the Lamenti recital (Virgin Classics) which won Record of the Year in 2009 at France's Victoires de la musique classique. He premiered the role of Protector in George Benjamin's 2012 opera Written on Skin, and the role of Walt Disney in Philip Glass's 2013 opera The Perfect American. In 2016, Purves was the bass soloist in Beethoven's Ninth at the Proms and later in the year played the title character in Don Giovanni with ENO.
More in Choristers of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Christopher Purves (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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